Today, there is a great need for an inexpensive imaging system capable of providing 360-degree situational awareness. Situational awareness involves perceiving critical factors in the environment or scene. It may include the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about what is happening in the scene, and comprehending what is occurring as the scene changes, or as objects in the scene move. An imaging system capable of providing situational awareness may be used in battlefield settings to get a real-time view of a combat situation or track movements in hazardous surroundings. Soldiers can use the system to better strategize patrolling routes or combat zones, minimizing casualties and damaged resources.
There is also a need for an imaging system that can enlarge a portion of the scene to clarify a suspicious object or person. The system can zoom in and send the image of a suspicious subject to a remote site for further analysis. In addition to military uses, such imaging device may be useful for security purposes for monitoring large areas such as a bus terminal or any area that requires a constant monitoring.
The imaging system may use inexpensive CCD image sensors to collect image data and store the data in a computer readable format. The system's affordability allows a variety of users to implement the system for various purposes. For example, a small business owner can install the imaging system to monitor shoplifters. A large mall may install multiple systems in the parking lot or the loading zones to monitor activities. An image system may also be installed by the main entrance door of a large apartment building to screen visitors. In some cases, small peep holes found in most doors are not sufficient to determine the identity of a person at the door. An image system may be installed at the door or in the hallway of an apartment to verify the identity of a visitor.
The low cost of these sensors and the ready availability of computer programs to process data generated from these sensors has led to a host of new applications and devices. However, as such sensor captures a separate field of view, any system that employs multiple sensors must also have a system that integrates the different fields-of-views together to create one image.
Current techniques utilize software applications to allow a user to combine a plurality of images from the plurality of sensors to create one image. Therefore, the sensors corresponding to different fields-of-view operate almost independently, and a user simply positions images obtained from each sensor adjacent to one another through the software application's graphical user interface, to form an integrated panoramic image. In most settings, these multiple sensors are exposed to a different amount of light. The amount of light exposed to a sensor is sometimes referred to as an exposure value, which relates to the brightness of an image. Without adjusting the exposure value, an under-exposed portion of an image is often too dark and the over-exposed portion is too light. For example, a combatant may want to place the imaging system in a tunnel or a dark alley to track movements or before entering the tunnel for an operation. Without adjusting the exposure, the images captured by the imaging system are too dark and difficult to understand. On the other hand, an imaging system placed in a bright spot, such as a desert combat zone, may also render images that are difficult to read from being over-exposed. In other instances, soldiers may be want to scout a complex terrain having both bright spots and dark spots such as deeply forested mountain trails. Therefore, because of different exposures of adjacent sensors, the combined image typically includes visible seams near the region of intersection of the images. Although, these seams may be partially smoothened out in the software application, such manipulation is generally accompanied by a loss of information near the seams. Therefore, what might be potentially valuable information about the scene may be lost in post-processing.
Accordingly, there is a great need for an inexpensive system that provides for a substantially seamless image depicting a 360-degree view of a scene.